Kevin stared. The town had changed dramatically. All the streetlights were out, save one. Others were broken, some bent. Only the moon and the sole lamp above the doorway he had run out of illuminated the scene. A few had bird nests in them. They didn’t look like they had been used in years. In fact, nothing did. The few cars were rusted and weatherworn, the shop front windows empty and dark. The grass grew through hundreds of cracks in the pavement and asphalt. A few patches of green that had been placed in the town square for aesthetic value were overgrown, as if no groundskeeper had tended them in years. Shrubs and weeds grew in the buildings, leaking out of empty doorways, and on the roofs even small saplings had sprouted from seeds carried by the wind. Then there were the people.

    But, no, they weren’t the only ones who weren’t dead. There was a minority of others. Women who looked like the whores Kevin had seen in Kiev, aged beyond their years, with lanky hair and deeply lined skin. Their eyes were full of malice. Here and there and in tiny groups were others who had not been talking; some men and women who were tanned and sallow, hairy looking, as if they never shaved, greasy and dirty, as if they never groomed. There were uni-brows and unclipped fingernails, long hands with short stubby fingers all the same uniform length. Hair on their wrists was spiky and easily visible, even on the women. They were dressed in drab and muted colors, as if they didn’t want to be seen.
    Kevin stared at them and they stared at Kevin, and the emptiness of the air, the lack of feeling in their unreadable expressions made his body shiver and teeth chatter in a way that had nothing to do with the cold night air. Sweat beaded Kevin’s skin, making him feel clammy under his clothes.

    The crowd gathered around, shuffling forward, saying nothing. The light just barely fell on their faces, and they didn’t step into the pool of it about the lamppost. Instead, they stopped just beyond the edge of it. Kevin panted, his lungs pumping as if he had run a mile. Hysteria was setting in. His ragged breaths were the loudest noise in the town square. That is, until a sharp crisp noise drowned it out; forceful footsteps of hard leather boots rapping against the pavement. From beyond the ring of people came a deep, heavily accented voice.
    “What is all this, eh? Do we have a guest?” The crowd parted reverently for the man coming forward. Kevin’s hysteria briefly abated itself, as a flicker of hope rose in the back of his mind. Perhaps this was rescue from the wrongness of it all. Perhaps this was the man in charge who would say “Boo!” and reveal it was all just a gag and everyone was in costume.
    That hope died quickly. The man who came up was dressed in a rich fur coat with fine leather boots and gloves. He had a mostly bald head, but with long hair running from the back of his skull to his ears. Long moustaches drooped from his face, and beneath them a broad smile revealed a single iron tooth. He was old, but not ancient, with hair that alternated between the black of its youth and a gray to match that one iron tooth. He looked for all the world like the bastard son of Vlad the Impaler and Lenin.

    We do, we do!” The man seemed genuinely pleased, and clapped his hands together. “But where are your manners, my children? So somber in the face of company? Well, tell me, did our guest come with any others? Has he friends, eh?” The man turned to a woman in a bright red shirt. She glanced from Kevin to him, and then responded with unexpected enthusiasm.
    “Da, there were a few, but I am afraid some of the others might of gotten a little carried away in the festivities! You know how it is, Father. We were all so surprised to have visitors!” The older fellow pouted for a moment at this.
    “Ah, well, it is understandable. But that means there is at least drinks, yes?” he asked. There was some bustle from the back of the crowd in answer, and an object was carefully passed forward. It was a big, ornate looking goblet, of archaic design.
    “Aha, perfect! A good celebration is nothing without good drinks.” exclaimed the man. He took a big quaff, and then sighed with satisfaction. Turning to Kevin he said “Here’s to you, my boy.” and slopped the remainder of the cup’s contents onto Kevin’s lap. Kevin looked down, his eyes wide, mouth agape. His lower torso was now covered in blood. It was right about then that his mind snapped. Anyone who looked at his face could see it clear as day, and most of the encircling people could. Those in the bright red shirts and some of the more obviously dead people Began laughing at the look on his face, but there was no heart to their laughter. The leader, the man in the fur coat, grinned through his mustache at Kevin. And for a moment one could see beyond that face, to something infinitely more sadistic from an age of Czars.

    Kevin scrambled backwards, tripped over himself, and ran back into the building he had come out of, the only way not blocked. Inside it was now like the rest of the town, years old and overgrown. Out of the doorway he had first entered came an old woman. She was like the ones outside, wrinkled and ragged, with deep-set eyes full of hate. Her nose and chin stuck out like a nutcracker’s. She smiled a bitter little smile at him, and started walking forward. Kevin bolted across the room before she could get any closer, taking the only other door there was. He ran through several empty rooms, briefly seeing discolored walls, cracked plaster, and plants growing through the rotten wood floors.
    Finally, there was a stairwell so old that it looked as likely to hold Kevin’s weight as a stick of balsa wood. Next to it was a window without glass. Barely thinking, he practically dived over the sill, hit the ground and ended up rolling through a thorn bush. The terrified American boy was quickly on his feet and running. If he got to the car, he was as good as out of there.